Marc Barnes Arrested, Charged For Theft & Destruction Of Property

Barnes, 51, prides himself on knowing how to run a popular nightclub, catering to 20- and 30-somethings looking for the latest “it” spot. His portfolio includes past popular clubs, such as Republic Gardens and Love, and his current venue, the Park at Fourteenth, in downtown Washington.

But on Oct. 31, he was arrested and spent more than 11 hours in a D.C. cellblock, charged with misdemeanor second-degree theft and destruction of property for something he said he does regularly: confiscating fake identifications or any identification misused by underage patrons to enter his club.

According to D.C. Superior Court documents, just after midnight on Aug. 10, Barnes and his security staff got into a confrontation with a Germantown woman over her identification. The woman, originally from Liberia, said that Barnes and his staff confiscated her Liberian driver’s license and residence permit, saying they were fake. Days later, according to the court documents, when the woman returned to the club to retrieve the documents, an employee told her that they had been shredded.

But Barnes, who pays his employees $10 for every fake identification they retrieve, said that the woman gave her identification that evening to an underage friend who had accompanied her to the club and that the pieces of identification were confiscated from the friend because they were being misused.

“I was locked up because she committed a crime,” Barnes says. “This is stupid.”

Barnes has become vigilant about cracking down on underage drinkers. In 2002, he was fined $2,000 by the city and later sued by the family of a U.S. Park Police officer who was killed when a 20-year-old woman got into her car and hit him after having several drinks at Dream in Northeast Washington.